News Guide: Kansas holding Democratic, GOP caucuses Saturday

John Hanna

Tuesday

Mar 1, 2016 at 10:16 AM

For Kansas voters eager to jump into the presidential race, the state’s Republican and Democratic caucuses make Saturday a big day.

The GOP is holding caucuses at 102 sites across the state, with 40 delegates to the party’s national convention this summer in Cleveland up for grabs. Democrats are caucusing at 47 sites to allocate 33 of the state’s 37 delegates to the national convention in Philadelphia.

Here are some details.

WHO’S ELIGIBLE TO VOTE

Both Republicans and Democrats are having closed caucuses, meaning only voters affiliated with the party can participate.

On the GOP side, voters had to have registered as Republicans by Feb. 4. They will be required to show photo identification.

But Republicans also are accepting absentee ballots if they postmarked by Saturday and will allow people to cast provisional ballots if they don’t have a photo ID.

For the Democratic caucuses, people will be able to register to vote or switch party affiliations at the caucus sites. No photo ID will be required, but people must come to the caucus sites to participate.

HOW REPUBLICANS CAUCUS

Voting in the Republican caucuses will be by paper ballot. It will open at each site at 10 a.m. and close at 2 p.m.

The ballot will list the five still-active candidates: Billionaire New York businessman Donald Trump, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Two inactive candidates, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and former technology executive Carly Fiorina, also will be listed.

Also, voters will be able to list no preference.

Clay Barker, the state GOP’s executive director, says it has printed 60,000 ballots and has told the caucus sites to know where they can copy more if need be.

THE GOP CONTEST

Only Trump, Cruz and Rubio are expected to win any of the state’s 40 delegates to the GOP National Convention.

Rubio has endorsements from Gov. Sam Brownback and U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, while Cruz is backed by many conservative activists. But supporters of both worried neither could prevent a Trump victory, and he picked up the endorsement Monday of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

Twenty-five of the delegates will be allocated based on the statewide results, split up proportionally among the candidates receiving at least 10 percent of the vote.

Another three delegates will be awarded in the same manner based on the results in each of the state’s four congressional districts, for a total of 12.

The remaining three delegates are party leaders who are required to support the candidate who prevails statewide.

HOW DEMOCRATS CAUCUS

Democratic caucus site will begin registering and checking in prospective voters at 1 p.m. and continue letting people get in line until 3 p.m. to participate. Caucusing begins at 3:30 p.m.

Participants will cluster into groups, based on which candidate they support or whether they have no preference. Each group will then be counted.

Caucus-goers can express a preference for one of four candidates: Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders; former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who has dropped out of the race, and California businessman Rocky De La Fuente.

If a group does not get 15 percent of the votes at a caucus site, then its members will be asked to join one of the groups that hit that mark, until all remaining groups have at least 15 percent of the vote.

THE DEMOCRATIC CONTEST

In the Democratic race, Clinton and Sanders are expected to split the delegates at stake. While former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and other prominent Kansas Democrats are supporting Clinton, party activists weren’t sure her supporters would overcome "organic" populist support for Sanders.

The Democratic Party isn’t guessing at the turnout. In 2008, more than 33,000 people participated, three times as many as expected, giving Barack Obama a big victory over Clinton.

Twenty-two of the 33 delegates at stake this year will be allocated proportionally based on the results in each of the state’s four congressional districts.

Four will be awarded from the 1st District of western and central Kansas; seven from the 2nd of eastern Kansas; six from the 3rd, centered on the Kansas City area, and five from the 4th, in south-central Kansas.

Another 11 delegates will be allocated based on the statewide results.

The remaining four unallocated delegates are superdelegates, party leaders who can support any candidate, regardless of the caucus results. Three are uncommitted and one, Teresa Krusor, a member of the Democratic National Committee, is supporting Clinton.

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